Malaria

Khama Rogo, a World Bank Officer has observed that Africa has the largest burden of diseases in the world, and the lowest in accessible healthcare delivery to its citizenry.

Rogo who is the Lead Health Specialist in Africa, World Bank Group, made this observation when he led officials of World Bank and Pharm Access on a courtesy call on the Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed at Government House, Ilorin, the state capital.

Expectant mothers have been urged to always ask for sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) as intermittent preventive drug against malaria during pregnancy. They should also register at a health facility for their ante-natal once they are confirmed pregnant.

China has recently declared as part of its new health commitments to provide Africa with the popular anti-malaria medication, Artemisinin, for five million people. This was revealed in an interactive session with Chinese health officials in Beijing as they hosted African journalists from the 2017 China Africa Press Centre programme.

The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, has urged Nigerians to stop using chloroquine, or Artemisinin as a monotherapy in treatment of malaria, as he listed steps that Nigerians need to take to combat the killer disease in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer of Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, Dr. Muntaqa Sadiq,‎ has lamented the high rate of Malaria cases in Nigeria, saying over 100 million malaria cases and about 300,000 deaths were recorded in 2015.

Speaking at the launch of ‘Malaria-to-Zero initiative’, a project that seeks to galvanise private sector resources towards averting 1 million malaria cases by 2020, Sadiq said Nigeria has the highest number of malaria casualties worldwide.